A Systematic Study of Chloride Ion Solvation in Water using van der Waals Inclusive Hybrid Density Functional Theory

Abstract: In this work, the solvation and electronic structure of the aqueous chloride ion solution was investigated using Density Functional Theory (DFT) based \textit{ab initio} molecular dynamics (AIMD). From an analysis of radial distribution functions, coordination numbers, and solvation structures, we found that exact exchange ($E_{\rm xx}$) and non-local van der Waals (vdW) interactions effectively \textit{weaken} the interactions between the Cl$^-$ ion and the first solvation shell. With a Cl-O coordination number in excellent agreement with experiment, we found that most configurations generated with vdW-inclusive hybrid DFT exhibit 6-fold coordinated distorted trigonal prism structures, which is indicative of a significantly disordered first solvation shell. By performing a series of band structure calculations on configurations generated from AIMD simulations with varying DFT potentials, we found that the solvated ion orbital energy levels (unlike the band structure of liquid water) strongly depend on the underlying molecular structures. In addition, these orbital energy levels were also significantly affected by the DFT functional employed for the electronic structure; as the fraction of $E_{\rm xx}$ was increased, the gap between the highest occupied molecular orbital of Cl$^-$ and the valence band maximum of liquid water steadily increased towards the experimental value.